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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

sorry for this terribly stupid question, though I never saw it posted here, hence my audacity, it just is heavily in my fingers and on my mind (for some decades) so: who is/are your favourite recordings/performances of this warhorse?

Garrick Ohlsson's wonderful recording (on the same CD as the gorgeous Liszt/Busoni Ad Nos, Ad Salutarem Undam) has been my go-to recording since I bought it a couple years ago. It's precise, musical, and clean. This is the recording I turn to when I want to hear a musical textbook-example recording (unlike someone like Pollini, who plays the piece note for note but, at least to my ears, simply fails to feel the piece). My previous go-to recording (incidentally also the first I had ever heard or owned) was Krystian Zimerman's, but it's since fallen out of favor for me.

For sheer unbridled energy and passion (and really clever voicing), I turn to one of my favorite underrated pianists- Alexei Sultanov. Unfortunately no recording of him playing this piece was ever released on an official CD. Some may disagree with his interpretational choices, but I think they're fresh, and I love the amount of energy and drama he infuses into his playing. Have a listen:

pianoloverus
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Can even a very great piece lose some of its interest if heard too much? I used to think not, but the Liszt Sonata may be in that category for me. I may have heard more live performances of this piece than any other in the last 45 years, and it is wearing a little thin. Same for the great Barcarolle of Chopin and others I thought I could never tire of.

Sviatoslav Richter's live recording from the Aldeburgh Festival 1966. For studio recordings, Zimerman is breathtaking in his control and audacity, also Pletnev's early Melodiya recording - his later DG recording is also amazing in its vision.

Incidentally, Kenneth Hamilton (author of After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance, and no mean pianist himself) did a CD Review for BBC Radio 3 recently and his preference was for Stephen Hough's recording. For me though, it lacks something in sheer audacity and verve compared to my preferred versions above.

_________________________
"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

... a great performance of this piece is a truly metaphysical experience which I look forward to each and every time.

Indeed. (Nicely put, too.)

But for that reason it joins a select group of compositions which I care not to hear too frequently, so every instance (assuming a good performance) is an 'event'.

Some years back I heard a very sub-standard performance (a student playing) littered with wrong notes, clanking fortissimos, uneven trills and memory lapses. It was a most distressing experience as the Liszt sonata morphed into a rambling, self-congratulatory exercise in claptrap... which, of course, is how some folks view even the best performances of the sonata.

I'll second Argerich, but not Berman, his rendition always struck me as heavy and slow by comparison to Argerich.

I'm curious if Pogorelich will join this discussion. I very much enjoyed the thread (whenever it was) in which she discussed learning this piece. I'd love to hear the recital recording, but something tells me she's not satisfied with it (or we would have heard about it).

I like Brendel's recording of it, the only annoying thing is the producers fade the end of the tracks out to lea into the next. But my favorite recording/performance is Berezovsky a l'a Roque D'antheron in 2008? I'm not sure of the year

thank you for all the suggestions/remarks/comments, I heard it performed by Nikikta Magaloff when I was 14, my father, still a fervent musiclover! told me Liszt was ' sweet and flashy, not to be compared to Schubert and Chopin', my teachers told me he was 'too difficult and shallow', what else does one need to propel a teenager towards Liszt...I tried from then on to conquer his masterpiece and have been playing it for more than 30 years, still sometimes doubting if it is the masterpiece I thought it to be in my early teens, and now just in the process of playing it again, wondering if that young eager boy listening to dear Nikita was right, just old memories and daily practice in one.

thank you for all the suggestions/remarks/comments, I heard it performed by Nikikta Magaloff when I was 14, my father, still a fervent musiclover! told me Liszt was ' sweet and flashy, not to be compared to Schubert and Chopin', my teachers told me he was 'too difficult and shallow', what else does one need to propel a teenager towards Liszt...I tried from then on to conquer his masterpiece and have been playing it for more than 30 years, still sometimes doubting if it is the masterpiece I thought it to be in my early teens, and now just in the process of playing it again, wondering if that young eager boy listening to dear Nikita was right, just old memories and daily practice in one.

It is the master piece you thought it to be. Keep working at it! You will get it.

It is the masterpiece you thought it to be. Keep working at it! You will get it.

Indeed he will, and that excites me very much.

I'll never forget Andre Watts playing the Liszt sonata -years ago in London- he broke a string! But that awesome moment at the Grandioso... we collectively saw the sun rise, as if it might have been the first time for humanity to experience such a primal birth and passage to light.